Iceland President Warns British Leaders Who Behave in a "Versailles Mode" | LaRouchePAC

January 9, 2010 (LPAC)—Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson warned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to be careful about the Iceland-bashing. "It is very important for Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown to realize that a few minutes after they speak to their audience in Britain, everything they say is being talked about in Icelandic fishing plants, and every village, and every office. We live in a global village where leaders in Britain can have a negative or positive impact on a referendum in Iceland," Grimsson told Britain's "Today" program. "If they want a constructive outcome of this dispute, they should be aware every sentence they say will have repercussions on the debate in Iceland."

Nothing has changed at Downing Street since the Versailles Congress 1918: the British government is behaving towards Iceland as it did with German reparations after World War I. The Financial Service Secretary to the U.K. Treasury, Paul Myners, has written a letter to the Financial Times making the point that it is "Important that this international agreement is honored." Apparently annoyed by the Financial Times opposition to the gunboat methods of the British government, Myners says: "It is very important that Iceland honors its international obligations and repays money provided by the U.K. to protect Icesave depositors." Myners argues sophistically that the repayment agreement allows Iceland to honor the debt without hampering its economic recovery, but does not move one inch away from his position. According to Myners, for Iceland to dedicate 4% of its GDP just to repay Icesave's speculative losses is fair! And this, at the same time that Iceland is promised EU membership, which means submitting to a 3% cap on deficit!

Myners' rantings are published under a letter pushing the opposite view, written by a Cambridge Fellow named Michael Waibel, who warns Britain that under EU laws, Britain has "no clear legal obligation to pay up." That in the best case, England has only 60% chance of winning its case. And even then, one should remember "the advice given by Elihu Root, a former U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to James Brown Scott, his legal adviser: 'We must always be careful, and especially so in our relations with the smaller state, that we never propose a settlement which we would not be willing to accept if the situation were reversed.'"

Iceland's Economy Minister Gylfi Magnusson confirmed in Dagens Nyheter today that the government will probably resign if the referendum turns down their Icesave bill.

Iceland sees the first anti-bailout revolt | City AM

Iceland sees the first anti-bailout revolt City AM

Allister Heath

ALLISTER HEATH

SOMEONE should give Gordon Brown a copy of John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Published in 1919, it addressed post-war Germany – but the book is uncannily relevant to the situation in today’s Iceland, explaining how crippling reparations enforced by powerful foreign nations on an unwilling population are counter-productive. Iceland – unlike Weimar Germany – won’t turn to extremism, though an eventual descent into national bankruptcy and hyperinflation is a real possibility, with Fitch yesterday downgrading the country’s debt to junk.

The UK and Dutch governments have been too harsh towards Iceland, to deflect the attention from their own stupidity – and now its people, who fear being pushed into poverty, are revolting. It is the first successful grass-roots anti-tax, anti-bailout revolt since the onset of the credit crunch.

The row boils down to Landsbanki’s Icesave unit, which like the rest of the Icelandic banking system collapsed in 2008. A small group of Icelandic entrepreneurs pushed the crazed Northern Rock banking model to its extreme, borrowing vast amounts to build financial giants with massive European property assets. These were often operated out of London and given the seal of approval by the FSA, academics and “experts”. But when the credit markets imploded, the banks collapsed.

British and Dutch depositors in Icesave were bailed out by their governments; Iceland had said it would cover the first €20,887 in accounts but didn’t have the foreign currency to meet its obligations. It was a worthless promise which should have been seen as such by the UK authorities: tiny nations are physically unable to guarantee all the foreign liabilities of any giant bank that they happen to host. Either they shouldn’t host the banks; or they should explicitly state that they are unprotected and in a real free market; or their banks should take part in pre-funded insurance schemes.

The bankers were incompetent, as were the Icelandic authorities, the UK authorities, the EU and the depositors who didn’t do their research. Egged on by price comparison websites and personal finance pages, the public assumed regulators would ensure every newfangled online bank was safe and forgot that high returns often mean high risk. Instead of acknowledging this, Brown is pursuing a vendetta against Iceland, trying to recoup all of the cash from its government.

Bailouts have been unpopular all over the world. Until now, however, voters were never consulted – but after a fifth of Iceland’s entire population signed a petition against the terms of a proposed £3.6bn reimbursement (at a 5.5 per cent rate of interest and a 14-year schedule) the proposal will now be put to a referendum and crushed. The sums involved are huge: 40-60 per cent of Iceland’s national income, taking the national debt to 200 per cent of GDP. Each of Iceland’s 304,000 citizen would have to pay £11,700 without getting shares or any assets in return. The money would be gone for good. Imagine if UK taxpayers were asked to pay £700bn to overseas governments because one of our banks had messed up. We too would be up in arms.

Iceland will hopefully hand over some money, albeit on more sensible terms. But the last thing we need is for Britain, the IMF and the EU to push Reykjavik into total bankruptcy or nobody will get anything. Shame that Brown, a self-professed Keynesian, has actually failed to heed his master’s warnings. allister.heath@cityam.com

The Iceland Crash. Enslaving a small nation

Already published!

A MUST READ

Available at website http://www.icelandcrash.com/

"Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Banker

This new book gives a new and fresh insight into the financial crisis in Iceland, the basic reason, of this serious crash. The Iceland crash is no ordinary financial crisis, it lies in the criminally insane decisions, made by politicians in Iceland. With full support of the parliament Althingi. The events of this autumn are not new or unforeseen, the situation has been building up steadily stronger the last 10 to 15 years. The Iceland Crash is the fruit of total greed, after the greatest national wealth of Iceland was given out to selected few, despite constitutional laws. The Icesave accounts and the aftermath, is a last resort of a scam, before the financial structure of Iceland crashed. At this time it is known that the last 4 days before the Iceland crash, huge amounts of funds were transferred from Icesave UK through Landsbanki, to foreign bank accounts in Cayman Islands, funds which the citizens of Iceland are now responsible for.

COMING SOON!

NEW PUBLICATION ABOUT THE ICELAND CRASH:
Title.

The Iceland Crash.
Enslaving a Small Nation.

Will be posted here on this blog,hopefully before Christmas.

Until then read and learn about the caracters we have as politicians, certainly the world over!


Attributes of the Antisocial Personality:


1. He or she speaks only in very broad generalities. “They say…”
“Everybody thinks…” “Everyone knows…” and such expressions are in
continual use, particularly when imparting rumor. When asked, “Who is
everybody…” it normally turns out to be one source and from this source the
antisocial person has manufactured what he or she pretends is the whole
opinion of the whole society.
This is natural to them since to them all society is a large hostile generality,
against the antisocial in particular.

2. Such a person deals mainly in bad news, critical or hostile
remarks, invalidation and general suppression.
“Gossip” or “bearer of evil tidings” or “rumormonger” once described
such persons.
It is notable that there is no good news or complimentary remark passed
on by such a person.

3. The antisocial personality alters, to worsen, communication
when he or she relays a message or news. Good news is stopped and only
bad news, often embellished, is passed along.
Such a person also pretends to pass on “bad news” which is in actual fact
invented.

4. A characteristic, and one of the sad things about an antisocial
personality, is that it does not respond to treatment or reform.

5. Surrounding such a personality we find cowed or ill
associates or friends who, when not driven actually insane, are yet
behaving in a crippled manner in life, failing, not succeeding.
Such people make trouble for others.
When treated or educated, the near associate of the antisocial personality
has no stability of gain but promptly relapses or loses his advantages of
knowledge, being under the suppressive influence of the other.

Physically treated, such associates commonly do not recover in the
expected time but worsen and have poor convalescences.
It is quite useless to treat or help or train such persons so long as they
remain under the influence of the antisocial connection.
The largest number of insane are insane because of such antisocial
connections and do not recover easily for the same reason.
Unjustly we seldom see the antisocial personality actually in an
institution. Only his “friends” and family are there.

6. The antisocial personality habitually selects the wrong target.
If a tire is flat from driving over nails, he or she curses a companion or a
noncausative source of the trouble. If the radio next door is too loud, he or she
kicks the cat. If A is the obvious cause, the antisocial personality inevitably blames B or
C or D.

7. The antisocial cannot finish a cycle of action. Any action goes
through a sequence wherein the action is begun, is continued for as long as is
required and is completed as planned.
The antisocial becomes surrounded with incomplete projects.

8. Many antisocial persons will freely confess to the most
alarming crimes when forced to do so, but will have no faintest sense
of responsibility for them.
Their actions have little or nothing to do with their own volition. Things
“just happened.”
They have no sense of correct causation and particularly cannot feel any
sense of remorse or shame therefore.

9. The antisocial personality supports only destructive groups
and rages against and attacks any constructive or betterment group.

10. This type of personality approves only of destructive actions
and fights against constructive or helpful actions or activities.
The artist in particular is often found as a magnet for persons with
antisocial personalities who see in his art something which must be destroyed
and covertly, “as a friend,” proceed to try.

11. Helping others is an activity which drives the antisocial
personality nearly berserk. Activities, however, which destroy in the
name of help are closely supported.

12. The antisocial personality has a bad sense of property and
conceives that the idea that anyone owns anything is a pretense,
made up to fool people. Nothing is ever really owned.

Side Show of Icelandic Nature.

My Picasa web album,from around Iceland.